the coast rivers and the interior waters on the south and the Mallee country on the north. I found then and registered by name, in their respective families and tribes, about 1,100 individuals."[1]
The late Mr. William Thomas, who for more than a quarter of a century acted as Protector or Guardian of the Aborigines, and had in the discharge of his duty visited nearly every part of Victoria, undertook at my request, some years ago, to make a careful estimate of the number of the Aborigines at the time when they possessed the land; and he arrived at the conclusion that the total number could not be less than 6,000. From his statement it appears that "the Aboriginal population in 1835-6 of the counties of Bourke, Evelyn, and Mornington was 350." But he adds that one-half at least of one of the tribes inhabiting these counties had perished in 1834 in a war with the Gippsland and Omeo blacks, and that previous to the war the total number was certainly not less than 500.[2] Further, the three counties he selected were in his opinion but sparsely peopled as compared with some other parts of Victoria, that these lands are not the best suited for the support of an Aboriginal population, and that the rivers which their boundaries embrace are not stocked with fish as are the Murray and its affluents.[3] Now the sum of the areas of these three counties is nearly 3,000,000 acres, which gives 6,000 acres for each Aboriginal; and the population of the colony would have been, if the whole of it had been peopled in the same proportion, 9,200 nearly. In estimating the numbers in this manner it is necessary to take note of the geographical features of the colony.
Though the counties named by Mr. Thomas are not the richest in Victoria, yet the greater part of the country they include is available for the uses of a savage people. Though the lands near the ranges are thickly timbered, and the eastern parts of Evelyn are covered in places with dense scrub, an immense area was in former times lightly timbered. Fine open forests of gum and she-oak covered a great part of Bourke; in the county of Evelyn there is a fine river, with numerous perennial streams falling into it; and in Mornington there are
- ↑ The Aborigines of Australia: A Lecture; by E. S. Parker, 1854, pp. 13-14.
- ↑ I give this statement as it was given to me. The native warfare generally does not result in the destruction of great numbers of the belligerents. One or two may fall in battle, never to rise again; but not seldom is a war concluded without actual loss of life. Mr. Thomas, in stating that 150 persons had perished in this war, merely repeated a story he had heard. During a protracted war—if the enemy followed the ordinary practices of the Australian savages—it is possible that a number of women and children might be carried away, and some warriors killed, not in open warfare, but treacherously by night—either strangled by the noose, or knocked on the head with the club; but a war resulting in the death of 150 persons is not certainly common amongst the blacks.
Mr. Thomas, in a note dated the 17th February 1864, states that, according to his observations, the Aborigines invariably adopted natural boundaries for their territories, as rivers, creeks, and mountains. The Wawoorong or Yarra tribe claimed the lands included within the basin of the River Yarra; all waters flowing into it were theirs, and the boundaries were the dividing ranges on the north, east, and south. The Boonoorong or Coast tribe claimed in the same way all the country lying to the south of the southern rim of the Yarra basin, eastwards from the Tarwin River to Port Phillip Bay, and southwards to the sea. In 1838 there were 205 members of the Wawoorong tribe, and 87 of the Boonoorong tribe.
- ↑ The Murray cod-perch (Oligorus Macquariensis), a large fish, often three feet in length, is found only in the River Murray and its tributaries. Black-fish, trout, eels, &c., are found in the rivers which flow from the southern and south-eastern slopes of the Great Dividing Range towards the sea.
